The addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art runs
along the eastern edge of the museum campus and provides a
counterpoint to the original 1933 Beaux-Arts
building.

The new museum, five distinct levels of expansive, light-filled
galleries, will open to the public on June 9th, increasing the
museum space by more than 70 percent.

Photo: Andy Ryan

Facing the new entrance plaza and reflecting pool, designed in
collaboration with Walter de Maria. the new bright and transparent
glass lobby invites the public into the experiences of the
Nelson-Atkins Museum. At night the glowing glass of the new lobby
provides an inviting transparency announcing events and
activities.

Photo: Andy Ryan

The idea of complimentary contrast, the Stone and
the Feather, drove our design for the addition to the classical
stone temple and surrounding landscape. The addition is not an
object: we envisioned a new paradigm fusing landscape and
architecture. In contrast to the stone building, the new
lightweight architecture of glass lenses is scattered about the
landscape framing sculpture gardens.

/Steven Holl

Photo: Andy Ryan

Holl and Chris McVoy refer to the five volumes as "lenses"
because of the way they bring light into the galleries and subtly
reshape one's views of the space. The volume's forms were driven in
part by the idea of a parallax view, or the apparent displacement
of an object caused by a change in the position from which it is
viewed.

For example, the lens containing the lobby and the library
begins on axis with the original museum, and then shifts slightly
to lead one back towards the other new volumes.

Photo: Andy Ryan

The five lenses emerge from the ground and create a dynamic
interaction between architecture and landscape, inside and outside,
translucence and opacity, tranquility and energy. The lenses'
multiple layers of translucent glass gather, diffuse and refract
light, at times materializing light like blocks of ice. During the
day the lenses inject varying qualities of light into the
galleries, while at night the sculpture garden glows with their
internal light. A court dedicated to the Museum's significant
holdings of Isamu Noguchi sculptures.

Photo: Andy Ryan

Photo: Andy Ryan

The sculpture garden continues up and over the gallery roofs,
and provides sustainable green roofs to achieve high insulation and
control storm water. The "meandering path" threaded between the
lenses in the Sculpture Park has its sinuous complement in the open
flow through the continuous level of galleries below.

Photo: Andy Ryan

The new parking garage lit by special lenses in the bottom of
the reflecting pool, is generously scaled for a direct entry into
the new lobby.

Photo: Andy Ryan

The galleries, organized in sequence to support the progression
of the collections, gradually step down into the Park, and are
punctuated by views into the landscape. As visitors move through
the new addition, they will experience a flow between light, art,
architecture and landscape.

Photo: Andy Ryan

Photo: Andy Ryan

Photo: Andy Ryan

Photo: Andy Ryan

The movement of the body as it crosses through overlapping
perspectives, through the landscape and the free movement threaded
between the light gathering lenses of the new addition are the
elemental connections between ourselves and architecture.